Ovechkin takes NHL goals lead with hat trick

Entering play Thursday night, Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin had not recorded a hat trick since December 2013 (via Washington Post Capitals beat writer Isabelle Khurshudyan), which is kind of unbelievable when you consider how many goals he has scored since then and how many times he scored multiple goals in a game. He recorded 22 two-goal games in the two-plus years since his previous hat trick, including four this season.

Keep in mind that no player since the start of the 2013-14 season has that many two-goal games.

He finally snapped that hat trick drought against the Minnesota Wild when he not only scored his 32nd, 33rd and 34th goals of the season, but also took over the NHL’s goal-scoring lead for the season, jumping over Chicago Blackhawks forward Patrick Kane. Ovechkin now has a one-goal lead over Kane even though he has played in four fewer games.

Here is a look at his third goal from Thursday’s game.

Ovi has a hatty, and he now leads the League with 34 goals.https://t.co/FBLqBRMZGq

— NHL (@NHL) February 12, 2016

That third goal came with a little bit of controversy.

The Wild challenged the goal thinking the puck had come out of the zone earlier in the shift just before Ovechkin scored which would have made it an offside play. Even though it seemed like it might have been possible that the puck did exit the zone before Nicklas Backstrom could keep it in, the officials decided there was no camera that could conclusively show that the puck exited the zone and allowed the goal to stand.

His second-period performance has Ovechkin on a 54-goal pace. If he maintains that it will be the seventh 50-goal season of his career, a number only Wayne Gretzky and Mike Bossy (both with nine) have done in NHL history. And if he ends up winning the goal-scoring crown it will be the fourth year in a row and the sixth time in his career.

Simply one of the best goal scorers to ever play in the NHL and still going strong.

Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin recorded his first hat trick in more than two years. (USATSI)

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